The Danger of a Single Story

From time to time, an old concept is presented in a new way. When that happens to me, shadows are often lifted that have been in my own life, and I'm better for it.

See if watching this video doesn't inspire you to take another look at some long-held beliefs you've had.

CR: I'm still enjoying the Joseph Finder—haven't had much time to read lately.

It's all better with friends.

NaNoWriMo: Who Should, Who Should Not?

November is National Novel Writing Month. It's actually international, and no one has high expectations that anyone is going to have a polished novel in thirty days. But still.

The idea is to put down 50,000 words between November 1st and November 30th. (Again, I've never seen a 50,000 word novel, but there aren't any rules that say you can't write more—and a surprising number of people manage 90,000 and more.)

Participants are encouraged to start from scratch and just enjoy a word blow-out. If I felt like I had a "free" thirty-day period to get goofy with writing, the starting from scratch concept would be a kick. And if in the end, all I had was a pile of garbage, it still would be a fun experiment.

Last year, my first year, I decided to add 50,000 words to the project I was working on. It was fun, I loved the encouragement from the emails, and although I did not hit 50,000 words, I wrote quite a few. A lot of them keepers.

Who should participate in NanoWriMo?

If you have a new story brewing around in your brain, Nano would be a great way to get it off the ground.

If you want to add 50,000 words to the manuscript you're currently working on, it's perfect.

If you tend to work on multiple projects at once, and can set the others aside for a bit, I think it might be like a terrific vacation to jump into fresh waters.

If you freeze up under competitive pressure, are notoriously self-critical, or feel the need to be perfect and edit everything over and over, NanoWriMo might be the perfect tool to work through those issues, which to some writers, can be paralyzing.

If you would like to see some terrific encouragement (much of it from published, big-name authors) show up in your mailbox, NanoWriMo is without peer.

Who Should Not?

If you're pushing against a finish line for a project you're working on, and you're concerned about it, this might not be the year for you.

Unless of course, you'd like those encouraging emails.

CR: Still reading the Joseph Finder.

It's all better with friends.

Book Reviewers in a Dither

Twitter and Facebook and writing loops have been bloated with the FTC ruling that would require book reviewers to acknowledge they received the book gratis.

So . . . what's the big deal?

First, don't you think most people suspect that there are a certain amount of books out there given to influencers who might help publishers gain sales?

Second, there's no guarantee the review will be a good one if, in the opinion of the reviewer, the book stinks.

Third, I have to wonder how many people have actually bought a book based on a review. I've bought several books on word-of-mouth, which I suppose a review essentially is, but I've never bought one because I read a review that extolled its virtues. Not once.

Fourth, if you buy books based on reviews, does it really make a difference to you where the reviewer obtained the book?

To me, this is much hoopla over nada. I'm just sayin'.

CR: Joseph Finder's Extraordinary Powers

It's all better with friends.

Book Trailers

What makes a successful book trailer?

I'm beginning to believe that just as one person loves a book while someone else puts it in their DNF (Did Not Finish) pile, it's pretty much the same with book trailers.

With all of the creativity, time—and often expense—that goes into the creation of trailers, the bottom line has to be sales. Does the book trailer make you want to go out and buy the book? Or, at the very least, check into it a little more?

Here are some things I like:

• Short. Maybe as long as 2 minutes, but 1 minute or less is best. Sort of like a visual Twitter program.

• Endorsements. If you've got some name-candy to throw around, throw it around early in the trailer. I'm shallow enough to pay more attention to something endorsed by Dean Koontz than well . . . Peg Brantley, or no one at all.

• Live action. Unless your still photos are super spooky and filled with tension, I'd much rather see living beings in action. I don't need to see their faces, but I want a sense of real people, not photos or statues or drawings. Even with historicals.

• Set the mood. If the trailer is for a cozy, it shouldn't be dark and evil. Music is huge, but so is color choice and pacing.

These are my personal preferences, and I'm curious . . . do you have any? Are there book trailers you love? Some you hate?

Have you ever bought a book because of its trailer?

CR: Extraordinary Powers by Joseph Finder. (Good, but Paranoia is better.)

It's all better with friends.

Writing Concept: Micro-tension in Exposition

Donald Maass has written a top-notch craft book called The Fire In Fiction. If you haven't laid your hands on this, I highly recommend it. This series of posts is taken directly from Chapter Eight. You will want your own copy if possible, so you can highlight and mark it up. I think this is one book on craft I will refer to often.

Exposition (interior monologue) is often skimmed over by readers. To illustrate his point, Maass suggests you pull out a purple highlighter (purple?) and grab a novel off your shelf. Read a few pages with your purple highlighter in hand. Draw a wavy line through any area you find yourself skimming. His bet is that much of what you skim will be exposition.

Why?

Maass writes: The most common reason is that such exposition merely restates what is obvious from what we have read: emotions that we felt earlier, thoughts that have already occurred to us. My private term for this is churning exposition. It's easy to skim because there's nothing new in it.

My notes from the his workshop include these words under micro-tension in exposition: SHARP HARD CONFLICT WAR

Tension in exposition is created when the author constructs feelings that are in conflict, or ideas that are at war with one another. Examples in Fire, include feelings of happiness and relief vying for worry in the exposition of one young girl. Ideas of judgment warring with forgiveness in the interior monologue of a dying man.

From Fire: How do you handle exposition? Are there passages of interior monologue in your manuscript that are just taking up space? If there are, you can cut them, or possibly you can dig deeper into your character at this moment in the story and find inside of him contradictions, dilemmas, opposing impulses, and clashing ideas that keep us in suspense.

. . . true tension in exposition comes not from circular worry or repetitive turmoil; it springs from emotions in conflict and ideas at war.

CR: Identity Crisis by Debbi Mack

It's all better with friends.

Writing Concept: Micro-tension in Action

You know that old axiom, "I know what I like when I see it." Well, when Donald Maass is actually reading examples and fixing them off the cuff, I can see it. I can hear it. The shift from mundane to intriguing.

But then I look at the page in front of me. One that I've written. It either looks just fine (and don't I know that is gonna bite me in the butt later on), or I can't figure out how to fix it. Is it really either of those things, or is it that I'm afraid it's going to require a lot more of me than I'm willing to give at this moment?

Whoa. That's bears repeating.

Is it really that I can't figure out how to fix something I've written, or is it that I'm going to have to invest more time, more thought, more struggle?

From The Fire in Fiction: . . . tension in action comes not from the action itself but from inside the point-of-view character experiencing it.

Here is a short section of a scene I recently revised. Hopefully, you'll be able to see a difference. Both of my critique partners had been in favor of cutting this paragraph. I decided to see if infusing it with a little bit of micro-tension changed their minds.

Bond (my co-protag) had gone for a walk with the family dog, a little bichon named McKenzie. The bad guys sent a message to the family by booting the small dog like a football. She's taking him to the vet.

First Draft:

Bond cradled him as best she could and took off at a fast trot down the remainder of the trail. She entered the code to open the garage and ducked under the door as it opened. Grabbed one of the blankets in her Jeep she always kept for emergencies and wrapped McKenzie. She hated letting him out of her grasp, but knew that laying him on the passenger seat would be better than him feeling her movements every time she moved her feet to drive. The garage door was barely up before she’d clamored into the Jeep and put her key in the ignition. Flying down the driveway, she punched a speed-dial number in her cell.

Revised draft:

Bond cradled him as best she could and sped off at a fast pace down the rocky, now dangerous, trail. Damn. What’s the code for the garage door? She forced her mind to focus. Two attempts and she ducked under the door as it opened. Grabbed one of the blankets in her Jeep she always kept for emergencies and swaddled McKenzie. The garage door was barely up before she’d clamored into the Jeep and twisted her key in the ignition. Firing down the driveway, she punched a speed-dial number in her cell.

What would make this better? More tension could be infused if Bond has some conflicting emotions. Any ideas?

CR: Identity Crisis by Debbi Mack.

It's all better with friends.

Writing Concept: Micro-tension in Dialogue

I'm working through my rewrites wondering how different the last half might look from the first as I try to stumble through the idea of developing micro-tension in my writing. I like to think I may have lucked out a time or two early on (or better, had flashes of brilliance), but since I have yet to fully understand this concept, there's a good chance there's little difference. {resigned sigh}

For more significant guidance, additional detail, or just because there's a lot more in the book than the idea of micro-tension, you'll want to get your hands on a copy of Fire in Fiction by Donald Maass. The chapter I'm working from is Chapter Eight, Tension All the Time.

Maass has the amazing ability (honed from years and years of studying writing) to pick up a sample and tweak it to add undeniable tension. Or intrigue. At the workshop I attended, a brave soul offered up her YA manuscript with a bit of dialogue to see how it could be enhanced.

Her scene had two people waiting for a bus. An older woman and a teen girl with an attitude. What Maass did to make it better was to get to the goals and emotions of the individual characters. The older woman was nosey, and the younger girl wanted to be left alone. Super conflict for tension in the dialogue. His immersion into the psyche of each character ratcheted the words each one uttered. Amazing.

From Fire: Tension in dialogue is emotional, not intellectual. It comes from people, not topics.

Writers will sometimes feel we have to risk backstory and info dumps to help the reader understand the situation, and in some cases, we're probably right. But there's no way we can turn information into riveting writing. It is what it is. Sometimes we can make things a little better using dialogue. But it must be infused with tension. One of your characters has to have an opposing goal, or a disbelieving view, or something that makes the dialogue relevant and interesting.

And don't forget inner conflict. That can be expressed in dialogue as well. Do they indicate that what they're about to say is really none of their business, or something else even more dramatic?

Maass gives an example of creating tension when the dialogue is between friends. Then, the writer must rely on friendly disagreement. But there is still an element of strain. Does the character think they're friend is making a horrible decision? Do they refuse to back down?

From Fire: Where is the tension in your dialogue? Is it present in every line? Why not undertake a dialogue draft? Check every conversation in your story. Are you relying on the circumstances or the topic itself to make it important for us to listen in?

That is dangerous. Instead, find the emotional friction between the speakers. Or externalize your characters' inner conflicts. Or pit allies against each other. True tension in dialogue comes not from what is being said, but from inside those who are saying it.

Maass says earlier in the chapter: Micro-tension is easily understood but hard to do. I know this because when teaching it in workshops I watch participants nod in understanding when I explain it, but see them stare helplessly at their pages when they try to do it themselves.

Was I that obvious?

CR: Identity Crisis by Debbi Mack

It's all better with friends.